Daily Tech News 23 September 2024

• EU Bookburner General Terry Britain is gone, stabbed in the back by his political masters and dumped in an alley like a diseased dog even the Haitians won't touch, but the EU is still a giant socialist hagfish looking for its next meal, so what do America's big tech companies have to look forward to from his replacement? (Ars Technica)
  
  We don't know. This is a Wired article, so it is 100% content-free.
  
  Britain is being replaced by a Finnish center-right politician, Henna Virkkunen. But she's been in the European Parliament for ten years now, plenty of time for the Helsinki to rub off and the Brussels to soak in.

• The entire human genome on a poker chip. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Ew.
  
  Etched by laser.
  
  Never mind.
  
  The storage device, using glass or quartz discs up to the size of a CD, can store up to 360TB and last more or less forever unless you hit them with a hammer.
  
  The problem is that you need a high power laser to write the data in the first place; you can't stamp them out in bulk.
  
  
  
• Keeping Firewire alive on Linux. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Recent versions of Windows and MacOS have abandoned Firewire entirely, so if you need to maintain support for some unusual hardware device, Linux is really your only option.
  
  Or stick with Windows 10.
  
  
  
• Running C code natively from JavaScript. (The New Stack)
  
  You seem to be attempting to summon Cthulhu. Would you like me to help with that?
  
  
  
• Are Facebook's Ray Ban smart glasses actually not terrible? (The Verge)
  
  Yes, they're marketed as AI, but what's more important is that they contain a microphone, a camera, and speakers, all of which work - and reportedly work pretty well - without any AI bullshit.
  
  And they're glasses; they don't cover most of your face and make your neck hurt. If you already wear glasses you can get them with your prescription.
  
  And they cost $299, not $3499.
  
  What they don't have in their current iteration is a display. There are other smart glasses like this that do have displays - not full VR but little HUDs, which can be very useful.
  
  If these features can come together maybe the Apple Vision Pro can quietly die and be forgotten.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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